Make Life Skate Life is a nonprofit organization that assembles volunteers to build skateparks around the world. In December 2017 they teamed up with Levis® Skateboarding to build a park in Taghazout, Morocco. We were lucky enough to make it out there and help.

We figured Madrid was close enough to Africa and decided to meet there to start the trip to Taghazout. With two skateboards, a rolling suitcase, and four backpacks of camera gear and some tools, we traveled to the job site entirely by public transportation. The trip took three days and two nights getting us there just on schedule. From Madrid, we took a train south to Cadiz, stayed the night, then bussed to Tarifa to catch a boat over the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangiers in Morocco.

Arriving in Africa, there were a lot of differences from Spain despite being so close. Arabic was the main language being used with French being widely understood too, but English and Spanish didn’t seem to get us very far. We were struggling to figure out the train to Casablanca, when we ran into this dude we talked to on the boat. He was going the same way and helped us get our tickets. We didn’t entirely trust him at first but decided to roll with it, knowing that if shit got sketchy we had each others backs. He ended up being the man, burning hash joints in between train cars, taking us out to eat in Casablanca, putting us up for the night and even letting us take showers at his apartment. Thanks Pierre! When in a foreign country, it can help to have a bit more faith in strangers than normal. They could end up being the difference between a good meal and a hot shower or a night sleeping on the sketchy streets of Casablanca.

From Casablanca we bussed six hours south to Agadir, and then one last ride in a taxi to the small surf town of Taghazout. From Madrid to Taghazout, we never planned more than a few hours ahead, mainly focusing on getting to the next stop, and where we’d sleep that night. When we arrived we still hadn’t planned where to stay for the three weeks we’d be in Taghazout. Luckily Make Life Skate Life had actually accounted for us to be there and saved space for us in one of the two crew houses.

The crew was made up of over 100 men and women of different nationalities from every continent, ranging from 16 to 50 something in age, with different backgrounds, levels of construction experience, and all speaking a big mix of languages. It was the most diverse group of people we’d ever been a part of, yet everyone shared the same passion for skating and building.

The whole build from dirt lot to public skatepark took only three weeks, with most people working everyday. There was an opening day deadline from the start and we mostly stayed ahead of schedule, although final touches were being made up until opening morning and even after. We arrived a few days after groundbreaking, right before the first truck of concrete. In those first days the crew had already shaped and framed out most of the park.

After days of traveling and making plans for only the next few hours, we were happy to just get fried and move mud until we had something to skate. After the first pour, it was at least one truck of concrete a day while also preparing for the next one. Some people worked on other aspects of the park like a bbq, a fire pit, seating areas, plants, trees for shade, and a cement camel. There were also a ton of coping blocks constantly being made and curing in water.

There aren’t a lot of places where you’ll hear a Swedish guy talking to Americans about construction techniques they saw a Japanese woman perform on the jobsite earlier. The sharing of techniques and cultures from around the world is mind blowing in a project like this. From building, skating, spliff rolling, diet, or dice games, we learned a lot from each other.

The first week there, we’d get breakfast in town, and use the wifi to work on finishing Issue 42 before meeting up at the jobsite for the pour. Issue 42 ended up getting sent to print from inside the job box at the site using a mobile hotspot for connection. Spirits were always high on the job site, and if you didn’t want to work, you could go surf or do whatever you wanted. But you could see everyone came to help, and took pride in getting dirty. Construction is dangerous and exhausting, so you could imagine things getting tense, or tempers flaring, but there was no stress on this job site, even with very little order and cubic meters of concrete pouring constantly. Everyone had a positive mental attitude. It felt like we had enough hands and enough skill/ knowledge combined to build the pyramids if that was the task at hand.

There were two houses for the builders to occupy for the month. We stayed in a five story house that was still under construction. The other house built a quarterpipe on the roof within the first week and had a floor dedicated to making pool block. We slept in an unfinished bathroom, a kitchen cupboard, or somewhere on the tile floor. This was more than enough for us to get a good nights sleep. People would be up late every night usually rolling spliffs and drinking warm beers, hanging out playing dice, chess, or getting tattoos.

Jerry Mraz made a film from the last Make Life Skate Life build in Palestine and premiered it in the yard at the house one night. It was the only time the whole crew was together off the job site, and it turned into a rager. Plastic bottles of wine got tossed into the crowd and there was instantly music blasting and strobe lights going off throughout the house. Definitely a party for the books in that little town.

We were getting about two trucks a day, until the last day there were five trucks for all the the flats. The final flat pour took all day and night to place and finish. People raged fires and blasted music till five in the morning, putting the last blocks of coping on walls and waiting for concrete to dry. By eight the next day there were more volunteers back to finish anything needed before the opening ceremony.

The whole town buzzed with news about the park, and people around town would always ask how it was going, giving thanks for being there doing something. The turnout on opening day was amazing. Taghazout is a small town, so it was obvious people had came out from neighboring towns to see the park. The mayor was there along with media, musicians, street vendors, and families with kids riding skateboards for the very first time.

The first night when we arrived we were talking with one of the Make Life Skate Life organizers and they said “I really want to see what everyone makes for themselves of this experience.” Which is an awesome approach to something like this, rather than expecting people to take away anything specific. So many people were involved in building this skatepark, and each person taught us something new. We got to learn about different peoples cultures from all over the world, plus a lesson on setting pool coping, and too much else to name. We couldn’t thank Make Life Skate Life and Levis® Skateboarding enough for including us in this amazing project.

Go build something.